90 Years Of Life

On Fridays I pop corn at the middle school. I’ve done this for years. Before Cope, I popped at Stockwell. Periodically another mom or dad will show up before I arrive and pop the corn while I unload candy from my car. They usually do a great job. But, just like any other dish, it always tastes different from mine. Last Friday one of the students asked me if it was me who popped the corn that day. When I nodded my head, she grinned and hollered "Ms. Darcie popped it today!" Then a crush of kids crammed forward for popcorn.

This absolutely made my day. I felt my whole body flush with happiness. It’s funny that being the award winning corn popper felt even more of a life’s accomplishment then when I graduated college. Or brought home my first paycheck. It must not be abstract when people say "it’s the little things that mean a lot."

Last week my father celebrated his 90th birthday. 90 years! That’s a really long time. Going back 90 years means they hadn’t even invented sliced bread. Which must mean that when his mother held her newborn son, he was the greatest thing that had ever happened in her world. It must have been tough on my teenaged father to have that twinkle in his mother’s eye replaced by a sliced up loaf of Sunbeam.

In 1918 Woodrow Wilson was president. He was credited with organizing the League of Nations. And in the tradition of my father’s family, the middle name he was given was that of the president. Woodrow. 90 years later the League of Nations is a distant memory. Which leaves us with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a really bad Sean Connery movie. What 90 years can do to a society.

In 1918 our country was still in the midst of a war. 90 years later things are no different. Man remains the same. A few years later the Gulf Coast would be destroyed by a major hurricane. History, yet again, repeats.

I was particularly happy that my father didn’t keep the tradition and name me after the current president. I would not have liked going through life being named Lyndon. Or Lady Bird. If I was named Lady Bird, I would have never married my Mr. Johnson. That would have been far too silly. And I imagine it would have taken even more explaining in school as to why my name was Lady Bird than it took telling teachers how to pronounce Darcel.

Standing in front of the blazing inferno that was his birthday cake, I thought how the cake was so brightly colored and had golfers on it. I celebrated my 40th birthday a few months ago and my cake was black with gravestones and epithets. A bit interesting to think that one is considered dead at 40, but at 90 you get celebrated for having abundant health. And at my 40th I was given thick glasses and a cane. At his 90th he was given golf balls and tobacco. Maybe the crowd was confused.

But an abundance of his friends and family gathered round the fire to sing him some birthday joy. I passed skewers and marshmallows all around and a Bossier City fireman stood by with a hose. He was giving me stern looks, for which I had no idea why. It had been months since I had set a hotel on fire toasting my donut, and there wasn’t even a donut to be seen anywhere. He was obviously being far to cautious.

The crowd sang while the geriatric, hippie guitar player that was undoubtedly Mick Jagger’s grandfather played a happy tune. The slides flicked above us with scenes of family and friends from years gone by. Some of his buddies took the microphone to tell how my father had affected their lives and how the world was a better place with him having been in it.

I wondered of what my father felt proudest. What in 90 long years did he lay in bed at night and feel glad that he had done? What brought that flush of happiness and accomplishment? Too personal a thing to ask, I wondered if it was something grande like flying his bomber in World War II. Or if even for him, one of the best accomplishments in life was something just simple and true. Like maybe being the best corn popper that a bunch of 12 year olds had ever loved. That is true joy.

Happy Birthday Dad.